nerv bae wrote:Near Third Impact isn't just a result of Shinji's very bad luck: it's a result of his choice to pursue Rei's soul in the core of the 10th Angel. If he had instead stood back a bit and used unawakened, or even initially-awakened, Unit 01 to destroy the 10th Angel (and thereby lose Rei's soul forever), the Near Third Impact might have been avoided while still winning the fight.

we the spectators had that information but Shinji the pilot of unit 01 did not ... and we do not know if Shinji could or could not have controlled that state and revert it when the angel was dead and say that Shinji should let Rei die is the same as say that Shinji had to follow gendo's orders and destroy unit 03 limb by limb and crush the entry plug because Asuka was already "lost" in Nerv's eyes (the angel had corrupted the eva until reaching and infiltrating the entry plug and also Asuka).

And again I must add that no one, not even Ritsuko, knew that an Eva could awaken and that if it ate an angel said Eva could initiate the third impact by itself when all the information they had only involved Lilith.

nerv bae wrote:Near Third Impact isn't just a result of Shinji's very bad luck: it's a result of his choice to pursue Rei's soul in the core of the 10th Angel. If he had instead stood back a bit and used unawakened, or even initially-awakened, Unit 01 to destroy the 10th Angel (and thereby lose Rei's soul forever), the Near Third Impact might have been avoided while still winning the fight.

Yeah. I read there is a cultural aspect there. It seems Shinji's actions are considered from a Japanese's ideology.

After all, Shinji doesn't care what happened to the World at that point, he just wanted to save Rei.

Konja7 wrote:

The18°angel#932966 wrote:N3I is the trigger for the third impact ... but we see that unit 01 was not even physically present in the short scene showing the third impact caused by unit 06. I don't know how the two events are related and there was at least one angel that had to be killed before the third impact and wille must have stolen the wunder at some point ...

Honestly, I think people focus so much in Unit 01 not being physically present.

The trigger to bring about the Third Impact is mentioned to happen when Awakened Unit 01 opened the Gates of Guf (an event called N3I). As I mentioned, we don't know how this was the trigger for the Third Impact, but this implies that Unit 01 already has his role as a trigger at the end of 2.0.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm also frustrated because the writers don't give a clear explanation about this. it wouldn't even be that difficult to create an explanation that totally blames Shinji, but they want to mantain the mystery.

This. Apparently, at the moment of N3I, Eva-01 established itself before Lilith as the "blueprint" for the Infinities, which were actually created later, during A3I, when Lilith was "reactivated".

And most likely the 10th Angel was also established the sacrificial Fruit of Life necessary to create the FoL-based infinities (or perhaps it was the 11th angel, actually present at A3I; we can't know. The 12th should be ruled out in my opinion, because it survived long after A3I).